Automat

Can you tell what this is?

Does this help?

How about this?

The first two pictures are of a painstaking project I had to do for my color theory class. It is called the "pixelation" project and is dreaded by all students at Harrington. Basically, we have to take a picture and pixelize it by gridding the image out and mixing all the colors that are in each square without allowing two of the same colors to be next to each other. Did I mention we can only use primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) and white? I counted and I had 413 little squares gridded out on my image. Of those, at least 1/3 of the squares were black. I'm no mathemetician, but that is over 100 different shades of black that I had to mix myself. Insane! The squares were so small that I applied my paint with a thumb tack. I'm not even kidding. It was a labor of love, to say the least.

As the second image shows, though, it was all worth it. The first picture is a close-up of the project and, as you can see, it looks like kind of a jumble. When you stand away from the pixelized image, though, it becomes the 1927 painting by Edward Hopper entitled "Automat." Or, atleast, a close replica.

I was actually reminded of this project and wanted to share it with all of you when I went to the recent Hopper exhibit at the art institute and was moved, once again, by the beautiful and tragic isolation in this painting (and most other paintings by Hopper.)

Also, I don't want to toot my own horn, but the project was chosen by my teacher to be diplayed before our school's accrediting body as an example of outstanding work. Thanks, Ed, for the inspiration!